


Disappointment

by Dernhelm



Category: Heroes (TV)
Genre: Angst, First Time, Hotel Sex, M/M, One Night Stands, Seduction
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2009-07-25
Updated: 2009-07-25
Packaged: 2018-01-02 11:22:53
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,794
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1056176
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Dernhelm/pseuds/Dernhelm
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Weakened by grief and fatigue, Mohinder lets his guard down and allows "Zane" in…in more ways than one.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Disappointment

**Author's Note:**

> Set during the episodes "Unexpected" and "Parasite," with the assumption that Mohinder did not see the news that Zane was killed until after he and Sylar returned from their road trip.
> 
> I wrote this in 2009 (but never posted it), after seeing the first season of "Heroes" for the first time. I know there has been some retroactive continuity in the seasons that followed, but none of that is taken into account here.

Mohinder was used to being a disappointment.

He was used to the calculating way his father would study him, albeit surreptitiously. As if he were waiting for Mohinder to suddenly do _something_. Something special, something impressive.

Mohinder had tried. Oh how he had tried. Top marks in his classes. A Ph.D achieved in a fraction of a time of his peers. He had studied as if his life had depended upon it, secretly desperate to keep up with the deep footsteps Dr. Chandra Suresh left in his wake, even as his father's stride was quickening.

He could never keep up. Never reach his prestigious father, in heart or merit. Always two steps ahead of Mohinder, and then he was gone for good.

Only now, with his father's ashes scattered, did Mohinder know he never could have kept up. Could never have been what his father wanted. He could never be Shanti. He could never be special in the way he needed Mohinder to be. He would always be a disappointment to the old Doctor, to some small degree.

So why did the approval of the dead matter? Why did he still see his father's scowling eyes in his mind whenever his own gaze lingered too long on his companion's face? Why did his belly twist in equal parts dread and…and something else whenever he watched Zane's full lips narrow into a sweet smirk? Or, whenever those dark eyes would widen in surprise at some new revelation Mohinder shared, followed by timid-voiced questions.

"I never knew that was possible." Zane said it so often, shaking his head in awed bewilderment. "So many gifts. So many special people out there. I can't wait to meet them all."

He was so earnest. Hopeful. It was a feeling Mohinder hadn't embraced in a long, long time. Not since he was a brash university student, challenging every theory, forging ahead on his path with a youthful confidence.

These days, he felt more like he was stumbling through a maze, with every answer leading to a question that would curve the path back on itself, and it's share of dead ends and bitter pitfalls.

But Zane…Zane was so new to all this. So open and willing to believe, to help. It had been long since anyone had offered Mohinder a hand he felt safe enough accepting. He needed Zane, he needed his bright spirit…

_Stop looking at me like that, Father._

Mohinder sighed and rubbed his tired eyes, shutting his laptop with a soft, unsatisfying 'click.' There was more work to do, so much more work. And more driving. But tomorrow they had to convince their first potential candidate, Dale, to agree to be studied, and Mohinder knew he would need to be at his most charming, most persuasive to reach the gruff woman. It would not do any good for his words to be tripping over his yawns. So, a quick shower, perhaps a little fuzzy television watched from the faded motel bed, and then to sleep.

He had only pulled his toiletries out of his travel bag when he heard a soft knock at the door. His heart leapt to his throat, strangling his breath momentarily. It was almost midnight. No one knew they were here, did they? Had he tracked them, all the way from New York? It couldn't be possible!

"Mohinder?" Zane's familiar voice cut through the spiraling rush of Mohinder's paranoia, "Are you in there?"

Mohinder rushed to the door, relief and foolishness rushing through him in equal parts.

"I'm sorry, Zane," he apologized absently as he cracked the door, then asked more gently, "what is it?"

"The plumbing in my room seems to be shot. I was hoping you'd let me use your shower?" Zane sighed in annoyance, his breath puffing in a little white cloud in the freezing night. He held a bundle of clothes wrapped in one of the threadbare motel towels, and he used it to motion into Mohinder's rapidly chilling hotel room.

"Of course." Mohinder stepped back to allow his friend entrance, hoping his expression was still neutral. He was far too polite to voice his annoyance at having his own shower delayed, and far too uncertain to even think about the little flip his belly was doing right now as Zane slid by him. Zane's body was so close that Mohinder could smell the winter sweat wafting off him. It was pungent, yes, but intoxicatingly musky at the same time.

Mohinder closed the door firmly, using it as an excuse to keep his back turned to Zane, to give himself a few seconds of composure. Perhaps it wasn't television he needed tonight, but a quick, hard wank to bleed off some of the tension that was plaguing him.

"Oh, I'm sorry," Zane's voice drifted from behind him, obviously seeing the evidence of Mohinder's own nighttime preparations. "Were you about to—"

"No, it's quite alright." Mohinder cut him off with a wave of his hand, continuing to avoid those piercing brown eyes as he drifted back towards his laptop. "There were a few other notes I wanted to go over before I turned in for the night."

Mohinder saw Zane nod out of the corner of his eye as he settled back into the world's most uncomfortable desk chair and flipped open the computer. But Zane didn't move. He stood by Mohinder's bed, motionless, as if he were trying to decide on something important.

Mohinder felt the little hairs on the back of his neck stand up on end, sending a chill down his spine that had nothing to do with the cold night. He had that distinct feeling that he was being studied, silently assessed, and not necessarily kindly.

_His father's eyes, his father's disappointment…_

"I'll only be a few minutes." Zane's voice was drifting from the bathroom by the time Mohinder turned around, and the doctor felt foolish and unsettled. He could have sworn Zane was watching him intently, that it was his eyes boring into the back of his skull…but Zane was too gentle a soul for such scouring scrutiny.

Mohinder's vision were blurring from just staring at the desktop of his computer. He was so tired, down to his core. He chided himself, none to kindly, for his increasing reliance on sleep. Used to be a time he could get by on two, three hours a day. Now he found himself needing more and more, caving in sometimes to an almost full night's rest. He couldn't allow himself that luxury, not when they were out there, so unaware of the dangers they faced simply by being who they were. He had to find them, warn them, save them…

_Like you couldn't save your father? Or Eden? How many more have to die because you aren't fast enough? Smart enough? Who will die while you rest peacefully in your bed, blissfully unaware of the pain being caused, the suffering, the screaming and bloodshed…_

"Dr. Suresh?" A whisper as tentative as the touch on his shoulder snapped Mohinder from his repose, and he realized he'd slumped over his keyboard in a fitful doze. "Are you alright?"

Mohinder nodded automatically, hating how off-balance he felt, how tired and weak. He rubbed his eyes again as he turned to face his companion, and his stomach did a backflip as he beheld Zane's bare chest. The skin was smooth, so pale it was almost alabaster, save for the sparse patches of dark hair, shower water still clinging in dewy droplets. Mohinder wondered fleetingly would they would taste like, how it would feel to let those little jewels dissolve on his tongue.

He wrenched his gaze away from the heavenly sight, feeling sick and wretched as he did so. His body was already betraying him, his cock stiffening uncomfortably in his suddenly confining trousers, and Mohinder knew there was no way he could get away gracefully without betraying himself. So, instead, he did the last thing he wanted to do, which was hunch further over his laptop, and mouse blindly for a file--any file--to make him look busy, and not like a man skating on the edge of desire.

"You don't have to look away," Zane's voice was soft, shy, making Mohinder's insides liquefy. "I…I don't mind." A gentle, tentative hand placed itself on the back of the doctor's stiff, sore neck, rubbing oh so softly.

Mohinder lost himself for a moment under the delicious massage, allowing a tiny, contented moan escape his lips. Despite his hesitant words, Zane's hands were so strong, sure, and Mohinder ached to feel those fingers exploring other parts of him, soothing, caressing…

"Zane," His voice was shaking. His voice never shook. "What are you--"

"Trying to relax you." Zane's words were almost a whisper. "You're working so hard, you deserve to relax a little."

Mohinder shook his head without dislodging Zane's fingers. "I don't, I can't--" His words of protest were swallowed by a genuine moan as his companion's fingers dug deeply into the strained muscles, forcing waves of relief through him.

Zane's other hand joined the first, spreading to massage Mohinder's shoulders. They ached so badly, both from hours at the wheel and at the keyboard, and the young doctor found himself slumping forward to give Zane better access.

Mohinder was distracted by the massage that he didn't realize Zane had bent over him until he felt the other man's hot breath on his ear, his stubbled cheek rubbing against his own.

"You need this, Mohinder," Zane breathed, his voice suddenly low, seductive, almost confident. "You helped me so much, let me help you. Please."

Mohinder groaned again, and it was the sound of an old door cracking open, of possibility rushing in to fill a dark corner of himself long kept hidden. It was enough to blindfold his father's scowling eyes, to bury the disapproving look that followed him everywhere, to pretend this was right, that this was natural, that it wasn't wrong of him to turn his head just so, to graze his dry lips against Zane's moist ones.

The first kiss was tentative, a whisper brushed against a promise. The second lingered, clinging gently, as Zane's hand drifted from Mohinder's shoulder to cup his chiseled jaw. In the third, the doctor's boldness grew with each beat of his heart, and when the tip of Zane's tongue quested against his lips, Mohinder allowed it passage, swallowing the breathy moan that accompanied it.

Mohinder was so dazed by the kisses that he barely noticed when Zane stood him up--almost effortlessly--and guided him the two steps to the bed. He did not lay Mohinder down, but instead guided him to sit on it's edge, for which Mohinder was grateful. This soon it would have jarred him to his senses, and Mohinder was enjoying being senseless far too much.

Their lips did not part for more than a few seconds, and Mohinder finally gave himself permission to touch Zane, to give into his earlier curiosity and feel the smooth planes of his companion's pale chest, those tiny droplets slicking under his fingers. His cock was rock-hard by now, pressing painfully against fly, but he dared not free it. It would be an admission of sorts, one he was not ready to face.

No, it was easier to let Zane lead, to let the younger man kiss and nip at the cinnamon-colored skin of his neck, to let those strong, eager hands pull his faded t-shirt over and off and away from them. Flesh met flesh, and Mohinder was dimly aware that Zane was on his knees on the floor before him, that he could wrap his arms around his broad shoulders, knees around his slender hips, pull him closer.

Zane made a little gasp as Mohider's erection pressed into his belly, even as Mohinder winced.

"That looks uncomfortable." Zane murmured, his fingers idly toying with Mohinder's zipper. "We can't be having that."

A flick of the wrist, a quick zip, and Mohinder's cock sprung free of its cage. It pressed up into Zane's hand through a thin layer of white cotton, damp with sweat and precum, and Zane eagerly squeezed the length.

"Lift your hips." Zane instructed, and Mohinder blearily complied, letting his friend yank both the kahki trouser and hated briefs onto the floor. All at once naked, Mohinder felt the first pangs of self-consciousness prick him. His work did not leave him the time he desired to care for his physical form, and he felt gangly suddenly, all elbows and limbs and awkward erection. He felt himself pulling back, trying to scoot onto the bed, perhaps under the covers, but Zane's hands upon his thighs stopped him.

"Don't," he whispered, his liquid brown eyes burning into Mohinder's. "Don't. You have no idea how lovely you are."

Mohinder couldn't hide the high, uncomfortable laugh that bubbled up in his throat. He'd been called handsome. Sexy, even, by his ex-girlfriend, Mira. But "lovely?" That was a word for flower gardens and other delicate things, and the shame he'd been trying to hide began to spread in this heart.

_This is wrong, sick…_

His downward spiral was interrupted by the brush of Zane's lips upon his inner thigh, caressing the downy, dark hairs with his hot breath. Burning anticipation squeezed in Mohinder's belly. 

Zane's lush, kiss-swollen lips closed around the tip of his dark cock, and Mohinder's escaped in a shuddering moan. Zane's mouth slid past the head, down the long shaft, swallowing Mohinder in an agonizingly slow gulp. Reason escaped, along with his inhibitions, melting on Zane's hot, flickering tongue like snow on a warming car hood. Mohinder had to plant his arms behind him to keep himself from falling back upon the bed, the muscles quivering weakly as he held himself up.

Mohinder's eyelids narrowed to slits but refused to close, even when Zane's hand reached up to join his working mouth, sliding over his spit-slicked shaft in clumsy rhythm. He had to watch, to _know_ that it was Zane who worked between his legs, who suckled him so greedily, who promised relief, comfort, bliss. Zane's other hand drifted from Mohinder's palpitating belly to palm his swollen sac, hefting the full weight with a careful squeeze. 

"Oh, God," another sighing moan was forced from Mohinder, and he spread his thighs wider to give Zane better access. He didn't think he could feel any greater pleasure than what Zane offered with his wet mouth and deft fingers…until he felt the very, very tip of a blunt finger brush against the tight pucker of his opening.

Mohinder stiffened, his senses snapping back into place. It was one thing to allow himself the offered comfort of a tender kiss, of a warm mouth to engulf him. It was completely another to even vaguely entertain the notion of letting a man enter where not even he had explored. Zane's finger froze where it was, and he lifted his head from between Mohinder's dark thighs.

"Do you not like that?" Zane's eyes were dark and hot as rich coffee, and though his voice was soft and slightly hesitant, it held an edge of something sharper, almost challenging. His hands did not stop stroking Mohinder's cock, in fact, they seemed to speed up, squeeze more firmly, stripping the doctor of his ability to form a clear thought.

"I…I don't know." Mohinder was able to stutter, honesty winning over fear, even as his hips were bucking up off the edge of the mattress.

The finger wiggled a little, not pressing, just exploring gently, sending flutters of new sensation through Mohinder. Combined with the slick sliding of Zane's hand, the little finger felt good, and Mohinder was both excited and terrified as he felt his flesh yielding, yearning.

"I think you do." Zane's voice was something new, husky in its eagerness, bearing a surprising confidence. It made him wonder briefly how many other men Zane had been with, how many others he'd seduced in this manner.

Thought evaporated as Zane's finger pressed inside Mohinder's tight hole, up to the first knuckle, and he froze again, involuntarily clenching around Zane's exploring digit.

"Shhh, relax." Zane breathed, before he dipped his head to swallow Mohinder's cock. With the warm, suckling rhythm resumed, it was easier for Mohinder to ease back into pleasure, willing his muscles to relax, telling himself he'd tell Zane to stop after he'd felt what this was like for a minute.

One minute turned to two, two to five, and one knuckle gradually became two full, long fingers sawing in and out of Mohinder's loosening opening as he cried out wordlessly. He had given up with trying to hold himself up, and he stared at the cracked motel ceiling as his hands fisted in Zane's damp hair. It was too good, too rich, and he was too weak to resist. He needed this, needed something, so badly he could not name it in any language he knew. He came back to one word, one sound again and again, and it echoed like a prayer, a mantra, through the tiny room, lost of meaning beyond it's ability to anchor Mohinder to this reality.

"Zane," Mohinder breathed, "Zane."

"I want you, Mohinder," Zane's voice floated up from the base of the bed, slightly hoarse, but no less desirable for it. "Will you let me…"

It had almost been better if he hadn't asked. If he had just pounced, with Mohinder pliant and helpless, he could tell himself later it wasn't his will. It had been lust, nothing more, temporary insanity that had let him yield himself up to this man. But with a choice, Mohinder was forced finally to face his naked desire, to decide between it and the fear he'd carried his whole life.

"In the bag at your feet." Mohinder's words were thick, alien, even as they rolled off his tongue. He tried not to think of what he was saying, what he was admitting to. "Use one."

Zane's fingers stayed inside him even as his hand left Mohinder's cock, and he did not--could not--watch as Zane unzipped the toiletry bag and ferreted for the condoms Mohinder always carried with him when he traveled. He hardly ever needed them, but he was glad for them now as he heard the familiar crinkle of tearing plastic, the slide of fabric as Zane slid his soft sweatpants off his hips to access his own untouched erection. Finally, Zane's fingers reluctantly slipped out of him, and Mohinder could see in his mind's eye the latex unrolling slowly over Zane's straining cock, engulfing it, as Mohinder's flesh would within moments.

"Do you have any--" Zane asked, and Mohinder blanked for a second. "Nevermind," Zane's voice drifted dreamily as Mohinder heard a snap of a bottle cap opening. "There it is."

Mohinder's mind began to race. Without Zane touching him, filling him, it was easier to doubt, to fear. Even with his nerves taut and his body humming with need, Mohinder was having second, third, and fourth thoughts. It wasn't too late to turn back, to say no, to admit he was out of his depth. He could reciprocate what Zane offered with his own mouth and hands, but to give his body in this manner, to this man he'd only just met, it was almost too much.

He felt Zane position himself between Mohinder's open legs, and the nudge of Zane's slicked, latex-clad cock against his swollen opening. Mohinder struggled to sit up, to find the words to tell his friend to wait, to stop...

The head nudged in, spreading Mohinder's tender flesh like a knife through ripened fruit. His words trapped in his throat as pain entwined with pleasure, fighting for dominance, and Mohinder could think of nothing beyond the animal struggle to either flee from the growing discomfort or impale himself upon bliss.

Zane saved him from choice. With his member pressing steadily into Mohinder, he wrapped his slicked hand around the older man's weeping cock, slowly smearing the clear pearl of precum around Mohinder's desperate flesh.

As the first jolt of familiar pleasure mingled with the newer sensations, Mohinder's mind went blank as a slate. He felt Zane slide in, inch by agonizingly slow inch, and he could do nothing--wanted to do nothing--but open himself wider, will his stubborn flesh to allow passage, give up, give in to Zane.

"Oh my God, you're so tight!"

Mohinder briefly registered Zane's strained whisper, then promptly forgot it as the cock inside him came to rest fully inside him, stretching him, filling him so he thought he would split open, even with the delicious distraction of Zane's idly stroking hand around his shaft.

"Move. Please." Mohinder didn't recognize his own voice. It sounded strangled, or drowned, coming from a place deep beyond reason, past pleasure, from a place he'd never touched or known: utter surrender.

Zane answered with his hips, setting a slow, careful rhythm, giving his partner the chance to acclimate, accept, enjoy. Mohinder's dark eyes fluttered closed, shutting out everything but the delicious friction, and he didn't realize he was reaching for Zane until he felt his arms wrap about his broad back, Zane's lips graze his throat and the head of Zane's cock strike a new angle inside Mohinder's secret flesh. Mohinder's nails raked into the muscles of Zane's sculpted back, and he kissed the stubble-flecked column of his stern throat. 

The energy flowed between them like electricity through water. Mohinder bucked his hips up wantonly,  receiving Zane's thrusts with an abandon alien to him. He felt like someone else, someone other than a determined geneticist, other than a man with a mission, other than a grieving son. He was only himself, only Mohinder, only flesh and sweat and want--God, so much _want_ \--and he knew he was rapidly reaching his core, his completion, no matter how he dug his fingers in to prolong it.

"Do it." Zane moaned, his free hand cupping Mohinder's jaw and tilting it towards him, none too gently. "I want to watch you come." His eyes were ablaze, the hidden fire unsheathed, and for a brief, gut-clenching moment, Mohinder thought he saw someone else in those depths, someone cold and judging, someone laughing--

He shut his eyes against the paranoia, delving back in to the place of pure bliss, and he began to move as if his life depended on it. He rocked his slim pelvis so hard he was moving his partner inside him, and he clawed at Zane's firm ass, loving the feel of muscles working with each thrust. Zane's own fingers were practically flying over Mohinder's cock, milking him, begging him wordlessly. Pinioned between stroking hand and driving friction, Mohinder had nowhere to go but into the wild, empty black.

Zane joined him there. Mohinder released with a high, keening cry, emptying in great, shuddering pulls onto Zane's frantic hand, spilling over onto his own straining belly. He clung to Zane even tighter, as if afraid he'd fly apart, even as his lover was bucking furiously, almost violently, spending himself deep inside Mohinder with a snarling moan.

Zane collapsed upon him, and lay motionless with his face buried in the crook of Mohinder's arm. Mohinder could only pant helplessly at the ceiling, pinioned under Zane's weight, his mind still blissfully blank. Neither man said a word, of either comfort or condemnation, or ventured to move. Mohinder knew that they second they did, they'd break the spell of forgetfulness that they had forged together, and everything he had just escaped from would come flooding back in a crush of jagged-edged thought.

It was Zane who moved first, slipping out of Mohinder with a tiny groan. He rolled off his unlikely lover, and Mohinder wondered dimly if Zane was deliberately hiding his face, or if it was just how the shadows were falling in the dim room. He realized he didn't want to know, not yet, and he closed his eyes again against the doubt that was leading the charge of returning thought.

"Here. Use this." Mohinder felt the soft scratchiness of a motel towel rasp across his belly momentarily, and he reached down to take it from Zane's hand. When their hands brushed, Zane's pulled away a little too quickly, and Mohinder's stomach knotted involuntarily.

He felt Zane's strong fingers grazing the line of his jaw, his warm lips pressing against his forehead, and Mohinder dared open his eyes. Met with Zane's awed, liquid gaze, the knot in his belly loosened, and it freed his tangled tongue.

"Thank you." Mohinder said, his words soft and sincere. "I didn't realize how badly I needed that."

Zane's mouth twisted into a gentle smirk, even as he easily tossed a little tissue-wrapped bundle into the waste can by the desk. "You don't let yourself relax enough."

Mohinder chuckled dryly, dropping the spent towel to the floor as he scooted up higher on the bed. His legs were quaking from fatigue, and the exhaustion he'd been fighting before Zane had entered was returning with a vengeance. He wanted nothing more than sleep, and he wondered if he should offer to let Zane stay the night.

But Zane was already pulling on the T-shirt he'd brought, slipping his feet into tattered sneakers. He met Mohinder's eyes, and they both knew where they stood. Not yet. Perhaps soon. But not yet.

"Get your rest, my friend." Zane's voice was kind, and he bent over the bed to kiss the sweaty top of Monhinder's head. He pulled the tousled blankets up around him, as if he were tucking in a small child. "We have a big day ahead of us."

Mohinder was already halfway to sleep when Zane closed the motel room door behind him. He was too tired to hear for Zane's own door unlocking, for the sound of his own creaking mattress through the paper-thin motel wall. He slept like the dead, and knew nothing more until the dim winter dawn pricked through the cheap curtains.

 

****

The next day, they did not speak of what had passed between them. At first it was a silent agreement, a revelation too fresh, but after they discovered Dale's mangled body all thought of pleasure or self-exploration fled from Mohinder's mind. The mission returned to the forefront of his mind--painted in dark, bloody splatters--and Mohinder was stony-jawed and silent all the way back to Brooklyn.

He had slipped up. He should have been more vigilant, more careful. He had let his guard down, and Sylar had slipped on under his watch.

Mohinder didn't realize quite how true that was until he saw the news story that awaited him when he logged online at home. Too many days without an internet connection, too many days out of touch with the world.

Guilt blossomed into horror, roiling in sickening curls through Mohinder's being.

_Sylar. Zane. Sylar._

The man who had murdered his father and who had brutally killed so many others. His hands…those strong, sure hands that had so gently touched him-- that had brought him the greatest pleasure of his life--were the very hands that had snapped his father's neck.

Mohinder closed his eyes, fighting the tears of rage, of sickness that burned just beneath the surface. There were no words for this shame, for this failure, and as he felt his father's piercing, bitter gaze prick through him once more, he finally knew it for what it was.

Not disappointment, but warning. A message from the dead or from within the depths of his own heart, he did not know, and it did not matter. He had not heeded it, and he had let Sylar in to his confidence, his trust, his _body_ …

He channeled his rage away from himself. Fury would only blind him, make him sloppy. He had to be careful, oh so careful, a sheep that sees the wolf for what it truly is. Silence was his only weapon. He could mourn Zane later--the man who never was and the possibilities that could never be-- and afterwards lock him carefully up in that dark place insdie his heart. 

Curare in the chai, a chemical I.V. drip, and Sylar would be helpless. It would be Mohinder's turn to take what he desired-- _needed_ \--from Sylar's body, and he would take great pleasure in the pain it would cause. Then, a single, clean bullet to the brain to put down the madman.

That at least he could do for his father. For himself. He could cleanse, avenge. Perhaps find the answered he so desperately needed.

He would not be a disappointment again.


End file.
